Yeah, Right
by Pollux Unbound
Summary: Ichigo's eyes scroll down Renji's neck…yep, that's a hickey alright, and a fairly large one at that. Hisagi Shuuhei thinks so too. Byakuya comes to the rescue. ByaRen One-shot Yaoi RenBya


**Disclaimer**: I do not own Bleach and its characters; genius Kubo Tite does.

If the day could get any more ordinary, Kurosaki Ichigo would…Nah. That would be impossible. To start wit, everything is just right where it's supposed to be, but for some reason it's practically killing him inch by inch. At this rate, he won't be needing some good ole Bankai-releasing challengers or some wild night-outs; what he needs is—well, what does he need, exactly? A miracle perhaps. Some life-altering turn of events or maybe just someone to spend the suicide-inducing, over-boring, entertainment-starved afternoon with.

"Man, at this fucking rate, if I ran into Kenpachi, I'd tell him I'd love to sit right the hell on top of his ugly head, and perhaps with that he'd be going homicidal on me. Anything but this." Ichigo tells himself.

And as if the sky has a life of its own, it now presents a solid evidence that his prayers have been heard. Abarai Renji and Hisagi Shuuhei can now be seen scurrying across the lawn of Soul Society's convention hall, apparently discussing something serious. Ichigo merrily traipses past the gateway and hurries over to his two buds.

As he involuntarily bats an eye on the two lieutenants, he notices something that's oddly out of place. For all he knows, something is noticeably unordinary about the sight before him. He adeptly employs his inherent skills in observation. Hisagi is looking disinterested as usual; narrow eyes wandering lazily, fists stuffed in his side pockets, spikes of hair pointing everywhere, and… Ichigo withdraws the insignificant array of descriptions, for nothing new is going on with the 9th division lieutenant. In short, Shuhei's being boring as always. His eyes shift to Renji Instead. Yes, Renji. Renji is wearing his customary headband like he normally does, to cover the vast region of hairless flesh that happens to be his huge forehead. Also. he is looking flushed, presumably due to the undesirable output of some stupid meeting. Lastly, the complete Shinigami attire he is wearing—oh shit. Not a complete set. A more-than-complete set in fact. Oh, Renji, your vanity is simply proverbial—

"Why the fuck are ya wearing that stupid scarf 'round your stupid neck?" Ichigo comments on the 6th division lieutenant's excessive piece of accessory.

"I should ask him the same." Hisagi says before Renji can spit back anything in his defense.

"If you must know, you fashion rubbernecks, this is the new black." Renji answers as though the two have just missed out on the latest gossip in town.

"Really? So the new black has been 'in' for how many years now exactly? Byakuya has been wearing one for about ten million decades now, and—"

Renji squints at the mention of his captain's name. "I just chanced upon this wonderful scarf somewhere and figured I might as well adapt Bya—I mean my captain's fashion sense." He reasons. What a lame defense attorney he would make, and sure enough he's just about made this wardrobe installment seem like anything but chance.

"Wow, Renji, I've heard about admiration to captains, but this? Man, if I were a little less sane I'd be liable to spread the news that yours is nothing less than a worshipful dedication. If anything, I'm quite sure it's obsession. And if I had taken a swig or two earlier I'd most likely be proclaiming it as love, no more, no less." Shuhei teases, and indeed it is as effective as magic, for Renji's beads of sweat have started to grow suspiciously numerous under the sunless sky.

"I—I don't know what you mean by that, but—"

Ichigo gives Renji's scarf a yank.

"What in sweaty hell was that for?!" Renji screams at the teen in unreasonable panic. As it is, Ichigo's eyebrows rise at the reaction he earned from the small tug he gave the scarf, an action which obviously isn't a trigger for some self-destruct system.

"Mate, are you alright? Lay off coffee, will ya? It's just a harmless pull given on a lifeless piece of white cloth around your neck. And, if it needs further explaining, I have no intentions of strangling you." Ichigo explains in what clearly is bold sarcasm. Hisagi is chuckling in fascination, buy Renji, on the other hand, is heaving rows of mysteriously heavy panting.

"Well, you just don't go around yanking people's clothing—"

"I'm sorry then. But, hey, will ya lend it to me for a sec? I wanna try it on and see how I'll look in it." Ichigo says.

"Ichigo, did you have breakfast with the 11th division's lieutenant this morning?" Renji asks all of a sudden.

"No."

"Then why the fuck are you bouncing here and there as though someone has shoved eight tons of sweets down your fucking throat?"

"Hey, stop it, you two." Hisagi warns before the exchanges turn into a heated retort combat.

"Well, Renji," Ichigo answers, completely ignoring Hisagi, "ten minutes earlier, I was approaching absolute expiration when you two came to my rescue. Now you don't wanna deprive this good lad of his fancies by going sour on me."

Renji studies him in a fearfully thorough scrutiny. The examination goes on for a whole minute.

"You want me to go fetch a lie detector or an x-ray machine, Renji?" Hisagi offers to hint his disagreement against the redhead's exercise of paranoia.

"No, thanks. Anyway, let's go grab something to eat; I'm starved."

"Sure." Ichigo says before continuing, "But really, mate, what's with the scarf? Did Byakuya give it to ya—"

"Seriously, Ichigo, must we pursue this horrible trend of conversation?" Renji asks in resignation.

"Uhm, let's see…considering the fact that you have yet to give light on its origin and pondering over your fervent attempts to prevent us from knowing, I'd say 'yes' in all caps, underscored, bold-fonted, italicized, polished with ten million exclamation marks."

"Nice one, mate." Hisagi echoes.

Renji looks away and swivels around to mark the last phase of his patience's fading.

"Let's grab something to eat. My treat." He mutters through clenched teeth.

Hisagi and Ichigo shoot each other with identical puzzled glances.

"Your treat, huh?" Hisagi says to relieve them of the unnatural silence. "It's a small phrase that means emptying your wallet; two weeks' worth of tedious work down our stomachs. I wouldn't say 'no' to that."

"Fine."

They gear up to proceed to the ramen shop when Ichigo becomes seized by a dreadful curiosity. The whole of this affair is unsettling, or so it seems for the untamable nosy git that he is. He sums up in his mind what his desired action can amount to. Some of the worst things which can conceivably happen are as follow: Renji would release his Bankai on him and destroy nearby buildings and landscape accents; raise a commotion (an uproar at worst); injure ten thousand souls at most, and;…he can't think of anything else. To cap it all up, it ain't gonna be _that_ bad. Hence, what better to do than satiate his urge to unravel the mystery of Renji's scarf? It's a scarf, for chrissake! It has all the wonders of a goddamn tomb, not to mention it can generate as much excitement as an amusement park! Oh, the genius of this all! Wearing a scarf once in awhile, if truth be told, is all a trivial event that comes once in every person's life, once in a goddamn week or so. Even so, it really has to be unraveled, at all fucking cost. So now that it's said and done, at least in his mind, Ichigo abandons the better of him at the mercy of his immaturity.

He is going to snatch that piece of cloth at whatever expense. Come hell or high water. Come glory or damnation. Come death and destruction. _Come to me, scarf, you lovely thing_.

Swoosh.

Scarf gone, never to be recovered in the next five minutes or more.

Renji's neck hangs exposed to the crude environment. While Ichigo is securing the cloth behind his back, Hisagi is shaking his head. Going back to Renji, he is most likely dying, or at least it looks like he is.

Then lo! and behold. Amidst the flurry of curses swooning in incredible velocity from Renji Abarai's mouth is a sight too inviting, too unpardonably bizarre, too strongly out of the ordinary, too unimpeachably interesting to ignore. There on the region where his Adam's apple is located is a goddamn bruise—no. It is not a bruise, because, if anything, it's a mark which Ichigo easily determines as a goddamn kiss mark, a remnant of petting, a sign of necking, a proof of some previous activity that's too infamous to utter directly, a hickey, the last one being the most popular term for it. Hickey. What an ugly term, a cheap homage for something that's so profoundly symbolic—why, it's the forerunner of lovemaking! Well, all of these incoherent, raving, verging on lunatic type of thoughts are swarming all over Kurosaki Ichigo's dirty mind. To say that he can't speak as of now would've been an oversight.

"Why, Renji has a little secret. Who gave it to ya?" Hisagi says, his lips curling in a very provoking shape, his face twisting into the most malicious expression he has ever pulled in his entire life. What an evil grin he's wearing now, and his voice no less evil.

"—it's not what you think—"

"—I would surmise so. I mean, perhaps it just got there on its _own_. I've heard of cases like that; from a mental hospital, most specifically—"

"—Sempai, believe me—"

"Well, Renji," Ichigo's voice sprouts from nowhere, "I will shut up here and now and mention it to no other soul if you'll be kind enough to relay to us the natural background of that treasure gleaming on your neck."

Renji would rather he was being surrounded by a million jerks.

"An—some _insect_ bit me and—er, ya know, so stupid of me, so I opted not to exhibit the proof of my—er, idiocy—er, all over Soul Society—"

"How entirely convincing." Hisagi mutters, rubbing his chin.

"Yeah, I bet you and that insect had a lot of goddamn fun fondling each other—" Ichigo is not able to finish,

"—It was a _fucking unidentified bug_, ok? Whoever would kiss my goddamn neck anyway?!" Renji explodes.

"And the bug goes by, what name?" Hisagi pushes.

"I've had enough of this. I'm going back to my quarters—"

Renji doesn't finish his verbal resignation, for his captain has touched down in front of them. Kuchiki Byakuya, the captain of the 6th division, that is to say Renji Abarai's captain, is staring at them all in a mildly derisive sneer.

"What's this racket all about?" He asks in his marvelously civil voice.

"Er, you see, uhm, Byakuya," Ichigo starts, "Renji here has a little something—"

"And does this 'little something' call for Soul Society-wide awareness? I must say, with the barrage you're concocting, I can very much send you down to Hueco Mundo to render your volume natural for the human eardrum."

There's this silence that's too much for their comfort.

Byakuya resumes, "Renji, come with me. I want you to fix something."

"Yes, captain."

And they have gone.

Grave disappointment strikes Kurosaki Ichigo speechless, almost tearful in fact. Better luck next time, was his consolation.

Meanwhile, at the 6th division's quarters, the captain's office…

"So I'm an insect, then? A bug, as what I heard earlier…a 'fucking unidentified bug', quoting from you, of course." Byakuya Kuchiki asks, looking as imposing as a goddamn executioner.

"Uhm—I can explain. You see, those two are the most tedious—" Again, all Abarai Renji can produce are fragmentary sentences, which are no better than neat clumps of stuttering.

"Well? If that seems to be the case, maybe I can have my scarf back."

"Taichou—"

"So it's 'taichou' now, isn't it?"

"…"

"Well, Renji?"

"Er, if it's not too much to ask, er, maybe we can uhm, you know, not leave vestigial remains of our uhm—"

"Fine."

"Thanks."

Renji smiles a weak smile. Damn, it makes Byakuya weak on the knees, but, hell, he'll die before he shows it. And then there's this mutual understanding speaking for them both. And so, finally, Renji turns around to leave the office, in an honest desire to attend to his lieutenant duties. Byakuya, for his part, lets him reach the door, confirming he has indeed dismissed his lieutenant.

He then changes his mind.

"Renji, I have one concern though."

Renji turns around.

"What is that?"

Byakuya slightly pulls the rim of the scarf he's wearing to reveal the root of his concern. His neck, apparently, is infested with red marks in polka arrangement. The marks, invariably, are of the exact same shape and size of Renji's mouth.

Renji blushes in dangerous profusion.

"I—well—"

"That's ok. I'm just showing it to you. You can leave now. I'll see you later, Renji.

**END**


End file.
